Chronicle/Ken StevensFormer Whitehall teacher and former varsity girls basketball coach Jared Bays listens to Muskegon County 14th Circuit Court Judge Timothy G. Hicks as he is sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for sexual contact with a 15-year-old female. Bays' attorney, Ronald H. Pannucci is pictured to the right.

MUSKEGON COUNTY -- Jared Bays, a popular former Whitehall teacher and girls basketball coach, is headed to state prison for sexual contact with a 15-year-old female student.

Muskegon County Circuit Judge Timothy G. Hicks sentenced Bays Friday morning to two to 15 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections.

Bays, 32, of Whitehall pleaded no contest in July to one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person between the ages of 13 and 15.

The two-year minimum sentence was near the bottom of state sentencing guidelines. A state parole board will decide whether Bays serves longer than that, up to the 15-year maximum set by law.

Bays no longer works for the Whitehall school district. He was terminated last month after he dropped his appeal of the district's tenure charges against him. He had been on unpaid leave since his arrest Jan. 7.

The consensual sexual relationship continued over several months in 2007 when the victim was 15.

The girl was a freshman member of Bays' junior varsity basketball team in fall 2007, but the sexual contact began months before that, when the girl was in the eighth grade.